Within the Dark Forest Chapter 3
After almost a day of waiting Sharon felt like she was going to go insane.
With all the contacts the team had you would think that they would have heard something by now but no one seemed to know anything.
And the analysis of the scented cloth seemed to be taking forever even though Sharon knew that it always took time to finish.
Finally Sharon couldn't stand the waiting anymore.
Grabbing her purse from her office, Sharon headed towards the elevators.
If no one could tell her anything about Rusty then Sharon was going to search the city street by street until she found him herself.
But when she turned the corner she almost ran into Sanchez as he got off the elevator.
"Captain! Glad I caught you before you went home." Sanchez said, holding onto Sharon's arm to steady her.
"You heard something about Rusty? Did your contacts know anything?"
Sharon knew that her voice was betraying her but she couldn't seem to help asking.
"They might have. I had a talk with one of the undercover cops that work downtown and he heard something that might be useful. Apparently someone high up in the Crips has passed down an order that Rusty needed to worked over."
"Why would the Crips care about Rusty? He's not a witness in one of their cases."
"I wondered that myself so I took a look at the high level gang members that we know of. Most of them are clean but it turns out that one of them, a man named L.C. Washington, grew up near Stroh. We can't prove anything but I'd be willing to bet that the order came from him."
Sanchez took a deep breath, unsure of how the Captain would take the news.
But Raydor seemed deep in thought as she took in the information.
"Has your contact heard anything about someone kidnapping or…..killing Rusty yesterday?"
"No Ma'am. But I asked Tao and Buzz to look over the tapes from your apartment for members of the Crips. I was heading there now to help."
"…I think I'll join you."
It was no surprise to anyone when they found a Crip on the videos.
"According to the videos a gang member named Craig Cook had been wandering around the apartment building for almost a week. Cook has priors for assault, burglary, and murder so he would be capable of taking Rusty."
Sanchez said as the rest of the team listened.
Then he turned to Raydor.
"Captain, if this is the guy then there is a strong possibility…"
"…That Rusty is already dead. I knew as soon as I entered his room that there was a chance he was already dead. But until we have proof of that we are going to assume that Rusty is alive, understand?"
Sharon looked at each member of the team as they nodded their agreement.
"How are we going to work this Captain? We can't just accuse this guy of taking Rusty, can we?"
Sykes asked as Provenza stood up.
"Why don't we bring him in for questioning about the fact that he has been stalking Rusty for almost a week?" Provenza suggested.
"We'll bring him in as a witness since the video shows that he was in the area of the apartment all night. Then we can ask Mr. Cook about Rusty and why he was there. Hopefully he'll be able to tell us something that could lead us to Rusty."
Sharon nodded to Sykes and Sanchez.
As the two of them left Provenza comes over to Sharon.
Knowing the others might be able to hear him; Provenza leaned close to her and lowered his voice.
"Captain, when the suspect gets here it would more than like is a good idea for someone other than you to interview him. I know this is hard but you're going to have to let us take care of this."
Sharon sighed softly.
"I know. "I'm too close to the case to be objective. Do what you think is best for the case. Just…."
"We'll do everything we can to bring Rusty home. Mark my words, the boy will come home safely."
"I hope you're right. I'll just be in my office trying not to get out my gun."
With a small smile Sharon slipped away and entered her office.
Leaning against the door, Sharon tried not to think about how unlikely it was that they'd find Rusty alive.